The literature on creativity reflects a preponderance
of competing theories emphasizing empirical methodologies. Inconsistencies
in defining, understanding, and investigating the creative process have
been introduced through cultural and professional biases underlying theoretical
assumptions. In this writing, creativity is more broadly outlined as an
holistic, multilevel, biphasic process of consciousness. A function of
ontogenetic evolution, the creative process is described in terms of its
role in the development of systems and structures of consciousness for
the purpose of adaptation. A developmental theory of the creative process
is offered, describing the conjoint evolution of consciousness and creativity,
from primal activation and archetypal influences to the emergence of self--reflective
awareness, or the thought-self. The impact of society and culture is discussed
in the light of a resultant schism in the unfolding continuum of consciousness.
The bisection of the range of awareness impairs creative functioning and
contributes to social and emotional maladaptions as well as psychosomatic
disorders. (154 words)

Creativity is examined in the light of accession, the capacity to access
remote areas of consciousness. Interstitial consciousness, the preconscious,
culturally-relative realm of awareness lying between the level of the
archetype and the self-reflective mind, is also explored in terms of its
origin and purpose in the creative process.

I. Introduction: In Search of the Phoenix

In a recent literature review of creativity, Barron
and Harrington' (1981) provide an illustrative outline of current research
trends and emphases. They indicate that Guilford's (1967) divergent thinking
theory is primary, while associational abilities, imagery, metaphorical
ability, and access to primitive modes of thought are given less emphasis.
Researchers seek to understand the characteristics of the "creative" through
an exploration of specific areas of achievement in relation to age, sex,
and personality dynamics, in search for "core characteristics."

Uncertainty prevails in the selection of factors or qualities serving
as determinants of creativity or creative persons, although the broad
focal areas are studies of creative persons, products, and processes.
Ironically, even the definitions and operational constructs are in dispute,
sparking disagreement over the forms theories of creativity should take,
from the reductionism of examining novel products to diffuse notions of
self-actualization (Golann, 1963). Doubt is also expressed as to how creativity
is distributed among populations as a trait (Nicholls, 1972).

The proliferation of competing theories has generated pockets of sometimes
inconsistent empirical data, according to Barron and Harrington (1981),
and a confounded view of creativity in all three major lines of theory:
person, product, and process. The discord is reminiscent of Kuhn's (1962)
period preceding epistemological "crisis," and seems to call for the emergence
of a metatheory, or paradigm, in order to reconcile existing areas of
theoretical difference in a major reformulation of the field. I am suggesting
a "reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals, a reconstruction
that changes some of the field's most elementary theoretical generalizations
as well as many of its paradigm methods and applications" (Kuhn, 1962,
p.85).

Reconstruction of the kind recommended above is, in itself, a creative
endeavor requiring "creative courage" (May, 1975) in order to expose
the certainty of prevailing models to doubt. If we are to follow the example
of the creative individual, as described by Hampden-Turner (1981) we must
seek the derangement and anxiety of uncertainty "to create new order from
disorder" (p. 112). The task is to unearth the implicit and explicit
assumptions underlying our understanding and to challenge the outworn,
seeking explanations for anomalies left unaddressed by current paradigms.
The goal must be the establishment of a flexible, probabilistic mode of
consideration and reconsideration, unfixed by vested research interests.

My intention in this writing is to offer an alternative view of creativity
in order to stimulate the process that may eventuate in a cohesive and
fertile theoretical foundation. I will remove creativity from the limiting
popular conceptual confines of the production of novel products, divergent
thinking, and uniquely creative persons, and attempt to frame it, more
appropriately I believe, within the far broader realm of consciousness.
Creativity will be presented as a dual-process function, part of the triphasic
nature of consciousness: Non-volitional awareness; destruction/ regression;
construction/synthesis.

Referring to the framework of Werner's (1957) Orthogenetic Principle
of development, I will try to demonstrate that divergent and convergent
thinking processes are a complementarity. They are universal, reciprocally
related manifestations of a unitary, underlying process--the unfolding
of consciousness in ontogenetic adaptation. The evolution of consciousness
and creativity follow an orthogenetic, developmental pattern, from globality
to differentiation, from differentiation to integration and-synthesis.

A developmental approach was selected on the basis of its heuristic value.
Development is, according to Werner (1957), "a concept that proposes a
certain manner of viewing behavior in its manifold manifestations" (p.
125). With the starting assumption of an orderly and systematic sequence
underlying embryogenesis, perceptual development, and epistemology, it
is safe to extend this to the creative process as well since "wherever
development occurs, it proceeds from a state of relative globality and
lack of differentiation to a state of increasing differentiation, articulation,
and hierarchic integration" (p. 127). Implicit in Werner's concept is
the connotation that the orthogenetic principle has universal application,
similar to the recapitulation of phylogenetic evolution within
that of ontogeny. It is, perhaps, an observation like this that
prompted the noted neurologist, Paul Schilder, to state:

Every thought repeats the natural history of creation, and in our
thoughts, we experience the development of the organic world (Gorman,
1969, p.57).

Thus, with creativity as "perhaps the most central concept of humanistic psychology" (Buhler and Allen, 1972, p.,50), we will briefly explore
its developmental role as an extension of consciousness and its
contributions to our adaptations to and our imprisonment within
a reality of our own creation.

II.

Activation and Adaptation: Substrates of the Creative Encounter

"Man is a producing animal," asserts Erich Fromm (1955,
p.361), inherently predisposed toward interaction. Fromm's view is also
shared-by German zoologist von Uexkªll, who claimed "the organism is not merely a reactor to the environment,
but an operator upon its Umwelt or scene" (Langer, 1970, p. 741). Piaget
(1970) and Carl Jung (1933) offer similar observations.

The tendency to interact, to engage, is fundamental to the mastery of
one's somatic, social, and objective environments. Creativity, as it will
be restated later, requires mediums upon which to operate, for it occurs
in an act of encounter and is to be understood with the encounter as its
center" (May, 1975, p. 77). To attain mastery calls for continued encounters,
such as those necessary in adaptation.

Understanding of the "need" to adapt may be sought in either a mechanistic,
behavioral (or ethological) position or, at the other pole, a teleological
process presuming goal-oriented development in an infant or neonate. Neither
explanation is wholly satisfactory, however, and it becomes necessary
to seek less extreme and mutually exclusive interpretations.

Koestler (1975), in The Act of Creation, suggests that the need
to adapt is precipitated by abrupt changes which arouse strong emotional
reactions through dissonance and conflicts. He implies that adaptive measures
are the result of heightened activity levels, a tension-reduction position
not far removed from that posited by Freud.(1956).

In contrast to Koestler, Maddi (1965) proposes the "Activation Theory"
of Fiske and Maddi. This theory assumes that individuals accommodate to
moderate levels of activation but, due to exposure either to excessive
or insufficient stimulation, will seek novelty-activation.

Support for the inherent seeking of activation or novelty is offered
by Piaget, who states:

Even in the first few days of life the infant often
seeks stimulation. When ... capable of activity, he tends to perform it
(Ginsburg and Opper, 1969, p.33).

The infant's activity, described by Piaget as revealing the origins of
intelligence, bear some similarity to Kris' (1952) account of "functional
pleasure": a discharge of energy resulting in a return to a basal, or
"normal" state of activation.

The innate "need" to exercise rudimentary physical and neurological systems
in preparation for adaptive encounters yet to come brings to mind a prototypal
variation on the theme of self-actualization, the expression of one's
potentials, as stated by Rogers (1961). The in utero fetus and the neonate,
by virtue of their activities, are already engaging the first environment
to be mastered - the somatic environment.

The gross, reflexive patterns of activation of the pre- and perinatal
organism are unlearned and differ significantly among infants in the global
senses of activity level and temperament; evidence against the Lockian
tabula rasa. But what is the source from which these differences
arise, and what do they contribute to the evolution of creativity?

His concept, based upon the Watson-Crick model of the DNA molecule, Koestler
(1975) describes the "codes" and "matrices" of behavior. Codes are invariant
rules determining the broad guidelines for development, applying both
to physical and psychological structures. The matrix consists of the mutable
elements of a cell, structure or system subject to determination by the
code's "blueprint of life" (Vaughn, 1976). In this discussion, the code
refers to the genetic pattern to be followed, while the matrix is the
total, undifferentiated somatosensory apparatus subject to the influence
of the code on one side, and the environment on the other.

Metaphorically, consider the fetal brain a gelatinous mass of undifferentiated,
unspecialized cellular materials. Further, let us assume that embedded
in this matrix are myriad hereditary neural pathways, all possible avenues
for the transmission-of energy to specific areas. The priorities of the
pathways chosen, and the areas they service, are assigned by the genetic
code, providing the anlage for maximal survival potential in the
majority of our species. A remarkable consistency in laying down these
potentials for later differentiation encompasses certain "universals"
for adaptation, prepotencies for collective perception and action, or,
what some have called instincts.

Ethology considers instincts as being either Fixed Motor Patterns
or Innate Releasing Mechanisms (IRM). The Fixed Motor Pattern is
an all-or-nothing, genetically-determined response sequence, while the
IRM is an afferent process pertaining to a situation in which an organism
"'recognizes' the biologically correct (adaptive) situation" through
perception of simple stimulus configurations and takes action (Lorenz,
1981, P. 153). This form of pattern recognition, perhaps a foundation
for our understanding of the nature of meaning, brings to mind May's (1975)
"passion for form" in the ontogenetic creation of the world, "the totality
of ourselves that fashions the images to which the world conforms" (P.
133).

There is congruence between the IRM and the Jungian concept of archetypes,
universal aspects of the collective unconscious of humanity. Jung (1970)
refers to the archetypes as a "typos (imprint), a definite grouping of
archaic character" (p. 41) as Freud referred to "archaic remnants", mental
forms whose presence cannot be explained by anything in the individual's
own life and which seem to be aboriginal, innate, and inherited shapes
of the human mind (Ibid., p. 57). Not a structure of the conscious mind,
the archetypes are latencies, potentials which predispose, beckon, or
urge a certain course, but may be resisted or countered.

Jaynes (1976) and Arieti (1976) offer their conceptual counterparts to
the archetypes as "aptic structures" and "endocepts," respectively. Jaynes'
construct is composed of an innate tendency modified by experience, while
Arieti's can also represent the degraded form of a once-conscious concept.

No matter the term, all address a primal level of primitive organization
in the evolution of consciousness, a predisposing system of protostructures
patterning the unconscious. They first directly influence the search for
what is meaningful and necessary to the individual's survival and adaptation,
later guiding perception while cloaked within personal and culturally-acquired
value orientations.

Consciousness interfaces and activates these primal structures through
various forms of energy, an oft-used yet abstract term. Jung (1953), Freud
(1956), and Shafer (1958) speak of psychic energy, as does Tart (1975).
Others more conservatively use neurologically-related terms such as "activation"
and "arousal." Very few actually grapple with a construct necessary to
define and operationalize these energies (Maddi, 1964).

There is a point to be clarified before proceeding: I am referring to
energy not as commensurate with consciousness itself, but as a
type of medium through which evolving consciousness influences and shapes
developing structures/systems. This is similar to the use of media in
the expressive development of artistic end-products.

R.O. Becker (1974) provides a workable concept for one form of measurable
energy utilized in development. In two decades of research on bioelectric
potentials in lower animals and humans, 'Becker has found "a complete
operational system ... proposed to exist in living organisms which controls
such basic functions as growth, healing and biological cycles" (p. 187).
The "analog system" of direct current potentials, in the form of patterns
or fields, had shown a data transmission effect capable of affecting the
ability of cells in lower animals to dedifferentiate from their attained
level of specialization to an undifferentiated state, only to specialize
once again with a different morphology. Put in other terms, specialized
cells "regressed" to a developmentally earlier, undetermined state of
potential mediated by bioelectric messages, and showed the capacity to
specialize again, both morphologically and functionally different. It
follows that, due to the bio-electric signal, the matrix of the cell was
disorganized, then subjected to adaptive rearrangement by the genetic
code.

Of further interest is the fact that DC potentials operate through
the solid-state, semi-conductive properties of proteins, cell membranes,
and collagens, having the ability to pattern a "gelatinous mass" such
as that which I described earlier in this section Becker considers the
d.c. field-transmission system archaic in relation to its "digital" counterpart'
which sends impulses down linear, branching nerve networks.. It is interesting
to consider the two systems of energy transmission and information as
factors possibly influencing the later specialization of hemispheric functions
(Bogen, 1974: Gazzaniga, 1974).

At this point, there is some justification to assume that, from fertilization
onward, the coding which directs cell and structure development operates
through bio-electric fields (among others). In this way, the primitive
nervous system is guided to establish prepotencies for adaption as rudimentary,
pre-systemic configurations already subjected to activation concurrent
with their appearance. many theorists have identified as archaic forms
or potentials (e.g., Jung's archetypes, Kant's à priori categories,
Jaynes' aptic structures, and Arieti's endocepts) may well be common recognition
of the biological substrate as it evolves into being, arising from humankind's
common history of adjustment to this planet, now part of a genetic record
encoded in which is the past, present and, perhaps, the future of humanity's
adaptation.

III.

Physiognomic Learning:
Somatic
Encounters and Cognitive Structures

The budding protosystems described in the preceding section are part
of an organismic, interactive unfolding of the developing psyche and soma,
in relation to each other and to the environment. Consciousness unfurls
through archetypal potentials, unaware of its awareness, and influences
aspects of mind/body development while paving the way for systemic strengths
and weaknesses, attractions, aversions, talents, aptitudes, and temperament.
Jung (1953) recognizes idiosyncratic and specific' reactions beyond those
conditioned socially as the "a priori formal condition of apperception
based on instincts" (p. 16).

The body, its physical structure and energies, is the medium through
which consciousness interacts with the external world. It is the means
of active interface and encounter.

Freud said "the ego is first and foremost a body ego" (Gorman., 1969,
p. 36), implying that the body is the vehicle through which external reality
and its limitations are to be experienced, and the "reality-principle"
is to be taught. Through the pleasures and pains of sensation and feeling
do we come to terms with Adaption and etch the topography of our strange
environment upon the genetic anlage.

This is the origin of the body concept, "developed out of visual, tactile,
and postural percepts" (Crichtley, in Gorman, 1969, p.6), a multilevel
construct which, through successive layering 'of experience, eventually
achieves the level of a self-reflective and socially-influenced conscious
image.

Erikson (1955) adds the important element of play to the development
of the body ego:

The child's play begins with and centers on his own body...it begins
before we notice it as play, and consists at first in the exploration
by repetition of sensual perceptions, of kinesthetic sensations,
of vocalizations, etc. Next, the child plays with available persons
and things. He may playfully cry to see what wavelength would serve
best to make the mother reappear, or he may indulge in experimental
excursions on her body...and her face. This is the child's first
geography, and the basic maps acquired in such interplay... no doubt
remain guides for the ego's first orientation with the world' (p.233).

Body (or physiognomic) learning and play are interacting processes, according
to Erikson, essential to each other and to the externalization of objects
and situations. Abstractions of events experienced by the- child become
rudimentary symbolic representations "necessary to the construction of
ideological consciousness or theoretical cognition" (Langer, 1970, p.
765). to come later in development.

From an ethological perspective, Lorenz (1981) states that the activities
of play have one thing in common: "Actions recognizably belonging to a
system of known function are performed without fulfilling that function"
(p. 330).

It is interesting that Lorenz believes that the purest forms of play,
the soaring of birds in thermal currents and the frolicking of porpoises
for example, permit the exercise and refinement of adaptive functions.
Further, the play of birds and porpoises is directed towards an economy
of energy, elaboration of new movements, and the use of natural forces
or energies (thermal currents; breaking waves). This, according to Lorenz's
perspective, is done in order to exceed normal capacities for speed and
maneuverability through the shaping of the most condensed, expedient combination
of form and function. At the risk of anthropomorphizing, parallels may
be drawn to Kris' (1952) "functional pleasure," trial-and-error in the
refinement of a skill, and a search for novel sensations. It is the "joy
of functioning for the, sake of functioning" (Ibid., p. 334) associated
with a playfulness accompanying the mastery of some aspect of the environment
or one s self.

Lorenz suggests that nervous system activity differs between free play
and serious activities, and that playful innovations occur only in a "field
devoid of tension" (p. 333). When appetitive tensions are present, behavior
is more restricted and focused.

Experiencing (and internalizing) the environment through the body, through
play, are factors in the physiognomic mode of knowing. It is, as Wallach
and Kogan (1965) phrase it, "learning about inner feeling and affect states
from perceivable externals' (p. 143). The "externals," to a great extent,
reflect the consequences of physical sallies into the world as individuals
impress their inner organization upon the environment, while the environment
reciprocates in like fashion. Thus, the encounter conveys the means for
inner organization, in this instance, specifically cognitive organization.

Agreeing with the significance of somatic encounters, Piaget finds that
the origins of the categories of reality stem from environmental interaction
and the search for novelty (Ginsburg and Opper, 1969). The search for
novelty begins as early as the first four months of life. Piaget's Principle
of Moderate Novelty calls to mind Maddi's (1965) "characteristic" level
of activation. Both concepts are relativistic, not only in relation to
the individual's maintenance of a stable state, but also in regard to
the activation that occurs when there is a "need" to operate on novel
stimuli:

"What determines curiosity is not the physical nature of the object,
but rather the degree to which the object is discrepant from what
the individual is familiar with" (Ginsburg and Opper, 1969, p. 39).

Piaget (1970) indicates that the main processes through-which the individual
comes to know and adapt to the environment are assimilation and accommodation.
Assimilation involves the "integration of external elements into evolving
or completed structures of an organism" (p. 707), while accommodation
is "any modification of an assimilatory scheme or structure by the elements
it assimilates" (p. 707).

Assimilation and accommodation both relate to the biphasic creative process,
since integrations and modifications require a tearing down of existing
structures in order that newer, more adaptive structures may emerge.
Older structures/systems, however, are not in fact destroyed. Instead,
they are incorporated into newer, presumably "higher-level" structures.
The "pre-existing subsystems become integrated into a new superordinated
whole" whose subsystem functions "not only remain indispensable but actually
gain in importance for the entire organism" .(Lorenz, 1981, p.
341). This is neoteny, the retention of juvenile characteristics
in the adult, a concept also incorporated by Arieti (1976) and Werner
and Kaplan (1963) in their theoretical formulations. This concept holds
much importance in creativity since, as Werner and Kaplan (1963) assert,
in addition to drug and dream states, novelty may permit older
systems to rise to direct expression once more.

Piaget (1970) associates adaption with organization as functional invariants
which, although complementary, occur simultaneously in a synthesizing
or fusion process. Cognitive structures and systems are the products
of environmental organization interacting with neural (archetypal) organization
in the individual's seeking out and abstraction of experience. The adaptive
value of cognitive structures is their capacity to condense and encode
experience, to slow the rate of perceived change through the use of
object constancy, and to increase automatization in order that knowledge
need not be sought anew with each experience (Schemer, 1958).

It appears that consciousness manifests in two parallel courses
as it-moves toward greater differentiation, much as a rope is composed
of two or more strands which, when woven together, increase its strength
and utility. Along one course, there is a movement toward greater organization
and a need for permanence in the encoding of experience. If this was
the sole process, environmental surprise" (Bruner, 1962) would be reduced
due to the "construction of a model or code or map for representing
the contingent and transitional event-structure of the environment"
(p. 4). Fortunately, a second process, the inherent tendency to seek
out stimulation and moderate novelty, provides a counterweight.

Both processes are necessary in the introjected re-creation of the
external world, for the world is the matrix of the individual's code
and can only be subjected to re-order when fully incorporated. The primary
phase in the externalizing of creativity is to establish one's self
in the known world (or field), a feat first calling for the individual
to tread where so many have preceded. It should be remembered however,
that "the discoveries a child makes may be true creations even though
many other persons have made them before" (Roe, 1976, p. 166).

Unfortunately, too often the two phases are unbalanced, sometimes by
genetic disorder, emotional factors or, most commonly, by the detrimental
effects of culture. It is this last type of imbalance that robs so many
of their creative birthright and will be discussed next.

IV.

The Road to Convergence:
Procrustes and the Paradigm

With increased maturation, experience and education, the propagation
of more differentiated cognitive structures/schemes continues, further
articulating and extending the internalized representation of "reality."
The child, while introjecting the object and social worlds, unconsciously
adopts an interpersonally similar world-view, through participation in
social mores, customs, and exposure to parental, cultural and subcultural
values and beliefs. In societies in which divergence from the "normal"
(or consensual) world-view is severely discouraged, procrustean expectations
gradually shear away the uniqueness of the individual, a process most
easily accomplished during childhood. Of this seduction to conform, Tart
(1975) says:

Eventually, ... willingness for self-modification necessary to
win rapport with the world, is stronger than (the) desire for autonomy
(p. 45).

The socialization process is described by Pearce (1974) as "a modifying
procedure that represses and largely eliminates by the very act of maturation,
the open-ended potential which thinking encompasses" (p.20). Pearce's
statement seems to imply that the superordination process of evolving
structures/systems - neoteny - may be warped by the potentially negative'
effects of certain forms of socialization. Such maladaptive consequences
resulting from "normal" social adjustment are discussed by Maslow (1968)
and Fromm (1955).

Adaption to one's social surround is necessary for, as Lorenz (1981)
indicates, "common knowledge unavoidably forms a bond among human beings
that is unprecedented in the animal world" (p. 343). Yet, the bond of
which Lorenz speaks commonly becomes an internalized, verbally-mediated
snare as we become entrapped in social and professional paradigms. Existing
within systems of unconsciously-adopted beliefs (and the implicit limits
placed upon what is to be considered "real"), the adult tends to forget
the rich texture of free synthesis" (Tart, 1975, p..45) of our childhood,
and we find ourselves locked into a single reality/paradigm/matrix lacking
the "code" to regenerate a more functional reality. We come to see ourselves
and our world - solely through the "prisms" (Pelletier and Garfield, 1976),
or lenses refracted along-the formulations of the social networks with
which we have come to affiliate.

One such prismatic paradigm which has greatly shaped our view of humanity
in relation to the world (and ourselves) stemmed from sixteenth century
Europe. The mind/body dualism of Descartes, the "Cartesian Catastrophe"
(Koestler, 1975), has had a profoundly divisive impact upon the ways in
which we have come to understand nature, in shaping an "objective," separatist
view of ourselves in relation to the physical world, and in compartmentalizing
aspects of our own being. In Descartes, self-conscious awareness, the
latest differentiation of evolving consciousness, had attained a superior
level of development and proclaimed itself autonomous in a supreme act
of hubris (Rychlak, 1977). This act was to become a secession of the rational,
self-conscious mind, a mote within the vast expansiveness of non-rational
awarenesses, from the ground of its own being.

Wilber (1981) explores this turning point in the evolution of consciousness
as an opposition between thought and the source of instinctual spontaneity,
the body. He refers to L. L. Whyte's description of the dissociation of
consciousness, estimated to have begun about 500 B.C., which extends to
the present. Not simply a differentiation of the kind discussed earlier
in which a new construct emerges but smoothly incorporates earlier levels
from which it arose, Whyte describes a dissociative split a rupture
in the continuum of consciousness evolution:

"...instinct and tradition having proved inadequate, the individual
was being compelled to rely for guidance on his ownmental
processes...This dominance of the individual's own mental processes
means, in unitary thought, that his attention was drawn to these
processes. Instinctive and traditional responses to the outer world
no longer sufficed to organize the whole of behavior, decisions
now increasingly to be made in accordance with forms internal to
himself. Thus man became self-conscious. The individual became aware
of his own thought (Whyte, 1960, p. 196-197).

Self-awareness was marked by the advent of the "ego," a construct promoting
a (false) sense of permanence and ownership as one "began to form a conception
of himself as a-static, permanent, persistent self; and that thought-self
tended to feel separate not only from the impulsive world but also from
the spontaneous aspects of its own body" (Whyte, in Wilber, 1981,
p. 198). The resultant inner constructs, the "analog 'I'" and "metaphor
'me'" (Jaynes, 1976), mechanisms used at first for the acquisition of
cultural knowledge, were also the tools of social adaptation; an internalized
verbal feedback and cognitive guidance system serving to facilitate interpersonal
appropriateness, the veneer of civilization concealing a growing "lesion
in awareness" (Wilber, 1981).

The "thought-self" (Wilber, 1981) is the most complicated construct formed
in development as it incorporates all levels of body image at a subjective
level, as well as the introjected and socially-shaped "objective" self.

Self-reflective consciousness arose as a differentiated construct for
the purpose of providing greater adaptivity to a world growing more dependent
upon verbal and Symbolic forms of communication, and less dependent upon
direct experience as the primary means of knowing. Consequently, the internalized
"self," a construct defined by the reflections of the social environment
and incorporating societal values, beliefs, and ways of seeing, grew in
its capacity to act upon internalized objects. However, the internal operations
were now generally somewhat more restricted to that which was consensually
defined by society as being both appropriate and plausible.

When paradigms are socially shared without excluding the possibility
of other, equally valid views, the individual is free to wander through
the learned matrices of thought and experience without the need to defend
and perpetuate a single Weltanschauung. With a variety of
perspectives available, synthesis may occur more easily.

Social indoctrination of a single paradigm, however, leads to an unbalancing
of the biphasic creative-process, since "survival" is equated with maintaining
an interpersonal sameness of the world-view. With fear of the unfamiliar
as the motivating force, societal (and professional) repressing of innovation--
and innovators--results in limitations placed upon the range of experiences
considered acceptable. There is a defense against experience which can
result in a society's "deviating further and further from the laws. and
roots of ... being" (Jung, 1953, p. 33).

Commenting upon the potential dangers inherent in the shaping effected
through our current educational methodologies, Kubie (1976) says:They
either tie our preconscious symbolic processes prematurely to precise
realities, or leave them to the mercy of distorting influences which arise
around areas of unconscious conflict (p. 148).

What originated as a continuum in the evolution of consciousness, permitting
interaction at all levels of being has become abridged by cognitive defenses
which filter out all but the loudest cries from the archetypal and somatosensory
levels. The abridgement or narrowing of consciousness results in the muting
of body-messages, insensitivity to affective signals, and a negation of
the subtle, universal, influences of the unconscious, alI valuable tools
in the biphasic creative expression of consciousness.

Along the continuum of consciousness, the gap which forms as a result
of the cognitive self seeking permanence--"immortality" (Rank, 1976)--leads
to a denial of alternative levels of awareness, or states of consciousness.
The tiny ego-consciousness is, according to Rogers (1963), a "sharp spotlight
of focused attention" and is a pale reflection of a broader awareness
that emerges only when normal functioning is disrupted by real, or perceived,
threats to the self. Self-consciousness is the "dubious gift of civilization"
(Jung, 1933), a construct of "ordinary" consciousness permitting us to
survive within a society that holds itself together through common beliefs
and reinforced paradigms that too often makes us "prisoners of our ordinary
state of consciousness" (Tart, 1975, p. 48).

The supreme irony lies in the fact that it is through our creative powers
that we eventually come to trap ourselves behind walls of self limitation.
Each incident calling for the suppression of imagination in the name of
"reality" serves to make the wall higher and thicker, strengthened bythe mortar of applauded conformity.

It should be understood that, although this section has emphasized the
emergence of self-consciousness, the impact of socialization upon the
individual, and the narrowing influence of strongly-held paradigms, this
is not intended to represent an indictment of society on the whole.
Moreso, it is an attempt to bring to light those general, interpersonal
factors, both explicit and implicit, which play a role in the erosion
of individual and collective creative potentials, and which serve to hold
creative expression in abeyance. Social attitudes and values, however,
may also provide a supportive, even facilitative foundation for the re-emergence
of creativity.

In summary, the flow of creative consciousness evident in the young child
has, in the adult, led to the development of self-awareness, with its
limitations of belief stamped-in by social structures and cultural paradigms,
and a resultant self-image molded by interpersonal influences. We are
both sustained and limited in a cocoon of cognitive structures and systems.
Hanging tenuously by a thread of consciousness to the broader awareness
potential, consciousness may remain dormant as a chrysalis or, recalling
its original nature, will raze the structures it has organized in silent
partnership with society and erect new, metamorphic forms.

V.

Regression or Accession:
The View from the Paradigm

In the preceding pages, the developmental unfolding of biphasic creativity
has reflected overlying processes used by consciousness in its thrust
toward adaptation. The assimilation of, and accommodation to, environments
have involved energy exchanges in the organization of body/mind structures
and systems, and the breakdown and reorganization of these structures/systems
through playful experiences, the search for novelty, and risk-taking.
What originated as a primal expression of undifferentiated consciousness
arising through the interaction of genetic materials and the cellular
environment, passes through integrated phases of sensorimotor adaption,
modification, and introjection, achieving discursive reasoning, verbal
concept capability, and finally, self-conscious awareness. In short, consciousness
has become enculturated. However, during the development toward maturation
and the formation of the ego/self-concept, the balanced use of the constructive-destructive
modes of creativity became problematic.

Culturally and individually biased needs for security and the stability
of current "reality" boundaries emphasize conservation and the solution
of problems within the matrix of the known, rather than through the generation
and consideration of unfamiliar, alternative realities. The organizing
(and anti-entropic) forces, which define society and culture, press individuals
toward the use of only one mode of creativity--the constructive. It then
becomes necessary to repress the destructive complement, the entropic
mode. This, in turn, leads to a perpetuation of the matrix of the familiar
and, consequently, a biased (and sometimes jaundiced) view of creativity.
The bias is the result of a slanted view of creativity; i.e., from within
the "normal," convergent, cultural/professional paradigm. Such an
intramodal perspective views creativity as being an atypical, discrete,
paradigm of divergence, and not as merely another manifestation of the
unified underlying process.

Once again reflecting the schism in consciousness mentioned in the previous
section, Pelletier (1978) describes the contribution of Simeons, a neuropsychiatrist,
whose model of psychosomatic disease is relevant to the nature of creativity,
consciousness, and the strain of adaption to our social/cultural environment:

Simeons contended that the cortex of the brain has evolved to the
point where it now asserts excessive control over subcortical, diencephalic
processes, and that cortical formulations are guided by moral precepts
which have arisen solely out of the cultural environment that man
has created. These moral sanctions are purely cortical, i.e., consciously
formulated; they have no biological basis. Thus, according to Simeons,
in response to the increased stresses of contemporary society, man
has imposed increasingly stringent cortical censorship over his more
biologically based reactions to those stresses (P. 190).

Creative individuals tend to be falsely perceived as unlike the majority,
"different" and special in their ability to generate alternative realities
at will and "realize" them. Their aberrance, a function of the paradigm
bias addressed earlier in this section, has been considered neurotic by
some (Freud, 1956; Kubie, 1952), or even bordering on madness (Lombroso,
1976).

The creative individual does have possession of one major aptitude which
sets him apart from the majority; this capacity being the sine
qua non, irrespective of whatever talents, education or skills may later
be brought to bear: the power of accession.

Accession, according to Webster (1970) denotes "assent; agreement," "the
act of coming to or attaining (a throne, power, etc.)" (p. 8). My use
of the word here takes into consideration the capacity to access remote
areas (or states) of awareness, resulting in the coming to power of resources
necessary for the innovative reorganization of one's self, one's environment,
or some aspect of the environment.

On the other hand, the conventional notion of regression tends to be
viewed through the "prism" (or paradigm) of the psychoanalytic viewpoint
as atavistic and retrogressive:

If reality becomes inexorable...the libido will finally be compelled
to resort to regression, and to seek satisfaction in one of the
organizations it had already surmounted or in one of the objects
it had relinquished earlier (Freud, 1956, p. 368).

From the perspective of Freudian analysis, regression is a reversion
to infantile behaviors.

Developmental theory however, considers regression a dual operation bearing
some similarity to cellular growth and development as found in biology,
and remarkably similar to the processes described earlier by Becker (1974).
Werner (1957) describes regression as a "dedifferentiation (dissolution
of existing schematized or automated behavior patterns) and "activation
of primitive levels of behavior from which undifferentiated (little formulated)
phenomenon emerge" (p. 139).

A more functionally-adaptive view than that of Freud, Werner's position
is still limited in terms of implying a linear interplay "up" and "down"
the developmental ladder, rather than access to "areas" of consciousness
adjacent to (or remote from) the baseline state. In regard to creativity,
Werner says "...a person's capacity for creativity presupposes mobility
in terms of regression and projection" (1957., p. 145). Retention of the
capacity to access many areas of consciousness, and to use the
spectrum of developmentally earlier forms of awareness (including those
emphasized in cognitive processes), is the capacity for creativity of
which Werner speaks.

Pelletier and Garfield (1976) recognize that through neoteny there is
the retention of higher-order cognitive functions during regression--" deindividuated
behavior"-- although primary drive states are called upon to interact with
the higher-level functions in "inexplicable interaction" (p. 14). The
phenomenon of accession necessitates a withdrawal from consensus reality,
with its social and cultural organizing principles of space and time.
LeShan acknowledges this departure, referring to a meditative withdrawal
as being "out of ordinary time" and beyond categorical separateness.

A "reculer pour mieux sauter" (Koestler, 1975), accession is a
withdrawal of energy from the higher, functional structures/systems and
its redeployment to pre-existent systems associated with developmentally
earlier forms of cognition and perception.

The "attention/awareness" energy mentioned by Tart (1975) is redirected
away from the maintenance of the "normal" state of awareness, the stable
state in which one operates according to the guidelines established, by
sociocultural consensus. Not actively rechanneled, energy is made available
to other, neotenous, systems due to its withdrawal from higher leveloperations, resulting in an equipotentiality of systems/structures.

The "central controlling functions" of the ego (Schafer, 1958) permita "self-regulated regression" (Kris, 1952); i.e.; through a relaxation
of systems of reality-testing, and a suspension of those systems supporting
self-control, self-criticism, and judgement, thresholds to alternative
ways of knowing and belief are lowered. This is the "openness to experience"
spoken of by Rogers (1961) leading to the "ability to toy with elements
and concepts" through a subjective, non-consensual "locus of evaluation"
(p. 354-355). Awareness is freed along all levels, and new realities are
within reach of the conscious mind. Consciousness gains access to other
matrices--associational fields--leading to possible "bisociations"
(Koestler, 1975).

In his study of remote associates, Mednick (1962) found that the associative
hierarchies of creative individuals tended to be flat, in contrast to
the steeper slopes of those having less ease of access to remote associations.
The differing slopes indicated that the latter group tended to produce
many stereotypical responses and lacked the associative flexibility which
would permit access to more remote fields of association. When field thresholds
are low, underlying incongruities and/or similarities are available to
consciousness for rearrangement by, and synthesis through the operations
of deeper, endoceptual/archetypal processes.

A function of accession (or regression), "deautomatization" plays a primary
role in the reorganization of intrapsychic materials. Deikman (1974) discusses
deautomatization as part of the mystic experience, but his description
is also clearly relevant to the nature of accession, especially in relation
to creativity:

A mystic experience is the production of an unusual state of consciousness.
This state is brought about by a deautomatization of hierarchically
ordered structures that ordinarily conserve attentional energy for
maximum efficiency in achieving the basic goals of the individual;
biological survival as an organism and psychological survival as a
personality (p. 233).

The conditions favoring accession suggested by Schafer (1958) are sensitivity
to affect signals (Roger's "openness to experience"), a sense of integrity
regarding the self (that is, the underlying feeling-self, and not the
thought-self), and a pre-existing integration of prior developmental levels
(including the healing of major traumas) as part of the ontogenetic growth
process. It is apparent that these conditions serve to keep the person
an "open" system, sensitive to the body signals that may be messages from
the physiognomic mode of learning, and which are capable of serving as
feeling-avenues--guidelines of induction to earlier perceptual modalities
and states of awareness.

With a weakening, or dissolution, of the energy barriers maintaining
normal" consciousness, the "semi-arbitrary constructions" (Tart, 1975)
between subject and object are also relaxed, and a union of sorts may
occur. This permits "the freedom to be dominated by the object" (Bruner,
1962) or situation, allowing the return to a developmentally earlier mode
of knowing: Through the introjection of objects and individuals into one's
self. This is the "immersion" of Henle (1962). It is also related to the
preparation state of creativity as mentioned by Wallas (1976), during
which focused attention and concentration cause an "overload" of higher
level systems, weakening the baseline state of consciousness (Tart, 1975).

Accession, in summary, is a form of regression to the extent that habituated
cognitive structures/systems are destabilized-- "deautomatized"-- with
a subsequent energy shift towards developmentally earlier structures and
systems. The controlled access to remote areas of consciousness presents
alternative ways of knowing (epistemology) and, assuming that the problem
has been adequately internalized during the preparatory phase, permits
aspects of the external world to submerge to deep levels where
the elements will combine with the archetypal "templates" during sleep,
reverie, drug-induced and natural altered states of consciousness. How
the products of this interaction at the instinct level are presented to,
and used by, the conscious mind, is the subject of the next section.

VI.

Interstitial Consciousness:
Crucible of Creativity

Whether referred to as Freud's "preconscious," or Jung's "personal unconscious"
this "area" represents those neighborhoods of awareness adjacent to the
"normal" state of self-reflective consciousness. It is readily available
to the conscious mind through accession with relatively little difficulty.
It is, as Coleridge describes it, "that nascent existence in the twilight
of imagination and just on the vestibule of consciousness" (Whyte, 1960,
p. 134).

It is predisposing and reflective of the cultural paradigm bias to consider
as pre-conscious the region surrounding self-conscious awareness.
There is a misleading sense of linearity implied in the term, both in
its implications of time and space. The prefix, according to Webster (1970),
denotes "before in time," "before in space," and "before in rank" (p.
1119), Also implied, as per the definitions, is the sense of an area of
consciousness less important than the self-conscious mind.

Jung's (1970) topography shows less bias in explaining this area of the
psyche as "that part ...which contains all the things that could just
as well be conscious" (p. 48). Jung also moves beyond cultural paradigm
bias by examining other cultures, particularly India and China, where
he found a freer exchange of awareness (or less repression) between the
conscious mind and its adjacent regions. He concluded:

The personal unconscious is really something very relative, and
its circle can be restricted and become so much narrower that it
touches zero... A man can develop his consciousness to such an extent
that he can say: Nihil humanum a me alienum (I am a man;
I count nothing alien to me)(p. 48).

The relative amount of the contents just beyond awareness suggests that
this is not a fixed borderland of the conscious mind. Rather, its is interstitial
from the standpoint of representing "a small or narrow space between...parts"
(Webster, 1970, p. 737). The difference intended here, as suggested by
the words of Jung (above), is that the area of interstitial consciousness
is the schism established through the advent of the self-construct,
and widened by the "European dissociation" suggested by Whyte (see Wilber,
1981). Thus, it is in this region that the range of awareness flowing
from archetypal sources is interrupted from its potential meshing with
the self-conscious mind through the ego's rejection of what it considers
alien to it.

Jung's observations on cultural differences in this area of the psyche
seem to verify that it is possible, when supported by the culture, to
maintain a continuity of consciousness. In such a spectrum of awareness,
self-consciousness imperceptibly blends into the vastness of the impersonal
(or collective) unconscious, unobstructed by the self's discriminatory
repression of what is personally alien, or remote, to it. Eastern traditions
such as yoga and meditation, and their elaborate spiritual systems of
belief are geared towards mind/body integration (Pelletier, 1978; Pelletier
and Carfieldl 1976) and the cultivation of a continuum of consciousness
such as that described by Jung.

Kris (1952) also places special emphasis on this "passage into consciousness"
as the place of interaction where unconscious influences interfacewith the introjected contents of the (self-) conscious mind. Further,
he alludes to meaningful recognition as occurring in the area of interstitial
consciousness. The products of reorganization reach conscious awareness
either as images (for example in Poincarè's account of the origins
of Fuchsian functions), symbols (e.g., Kekule's snake reverie) or in a
recognitory connection with a pattern (configuration) in the environment
(recall Lorenz's Innate Releasing Mechanism).

The mixture of two kinds of consciousness described in the preceding
paragraphs may also be considered the interfacing of primary and secondary
thought processes, or what Arieti (1976) refers to as the "tertiary process
or magic synthesis." The synthesis however, appears more like Assagioli's
(1981) concept of transmutation, since it involves the transfer of energies
among systems in which structures have been patterned and maintained through
the flow of-bioelectric potentials. Consequently, shifts in the direction
of energy between structures are accompanied by shifts in states of awareness.
These are detectable (although-not fully interpretable) through the use
of bioelectrically-sensitive equipment, such as the electroencephalograph
used in research by Kasamatsu and Hirai (1963) and Kamiya (1972).

The creative commingling of symbolic elements occurs in the area of interstitial
consciousness, that threshold between two entirely different spheres of
awareness. One area is that of archetypally-influenced consciousness:
impersonal, lacking self-awareness, physiognomically-based, and marked
by a pre-discursive, pre-verbal participation mystique with a lack
of self-boundaries. The second sphere is governed by ratiocination, various
forms of logical reasoning and language, self-awareness, and is characterized
by contrasts and comparisons which present a world-view of separate entities
and discrete categories of existence.

The syntheses produced at the threshold described above is expressed
in the language of images and symbols; sensory, kinesthetic, metaphoric,
etc. What type of "dialect" to be addressed to the self-conscious mind
depends upon the personal predisposition of the individual accessing these
areas of consciousness. The components-subject to rearrangement have all
been assimilated/introjected at some level of awareness, whether physiognomic
or intellectual, through conscious intent or latent experiencing, or as
images, symbols, and configurations not yet perceived by the conscious
mind as patterns or concepts.

Mental images, which develop between 1.5-7 years of age (Ginsburg and
Opper, 1969), may be antedated by diffuse proprioceptive, gustatory, visual,
auditory, and olfactory "images" absorbed before the subject-object differentiation
was erected by the discursive mind. The record of sense impressions appears
to be part of a developmentally early, homogeneous pool of sensory experiences,
still linked (below the threshold of conscious awareness) with pre-discursive
states of consciousness. Registered prior to the development of the capacity
to discriminate between senses, it is this mechanism, the association
of a sense-impression with a state of consciousness-- a state-specific
memory (Tart, 1975) that seems to explain Schiller's penchant for the
smell of rotting apples in his desk which aided him in his creative writing
(Ghiselin, 1952).

Where Schiller's conscious state was joined to a developmentally earlier
(and more remote) state of consciousness through an olfactory catalyst
indirectly affecting cerebral processing, a more direct approach was used
by Wilder Penfield (Penfield and Rasmussen, 1950). A neurosurgeon, Penfield
elicited hallucinatory memories in patients through direct electrostimulation
of the temporal lobes. Of the underlying unity of sense impressions found
by Penfield in his work, Hampden-Turner (1981) says:

Movements and sensation depend largely upon their source in the
human brain, as opposed to their physical manifestation in the body.
Hence...an amputated limb may still tingle because the receptors
remain in the brain, and those with diseases of the nervous system
can sometimes smell,' 'taste,' or see symptoms belonging to quite
other senses (p. 74).

In the deautomatized state, images and symbols, the introjects of the
external world, are subjected to the equipotentiality of schematizing,
cognitive systems and are free to shuttle from one association matrix
to another, formerly considered unrelated by the categorizing conscious
mind. It is analogous to the evolutionist's primordial sea, filled with
an organic "soup" of elements of varying sizes and degrees of attraction
(associative valence). These elements the introjected aspects of the object
world, shift, merge, coalesce, and separate, interacting beneath the now-lowered
partitions of self-conscious awareness. The combinations and recombinations
occurring at the interstitial interface are guided by principles of organization
quite different from the logical operations serving in consensus reality.
Primal, creative, biphasic consciousness, directed by intentionality,
the aufgabe of the Würzburg school (Arieti, 1976), moves through
archetypal shadows.

Like a deep and complex ocean current sweeping through underwater canyons
and playing about submerged formations, the undercurrent of primal,
undifferentiated consciousness is contoured by archetypes (or endocepts)
into eddies and vortices. The formative swirling reaches from the depths
of the placid, and impersonal collective unconscious to just below the
surface of the personal, self -reflective mind, floating like a slick
upon the vast sea of the unconscious. The undercurrents attract, influence,
organize, and mold the configurations of images and symbols of the introjected
world which have descended beneath the surface of conscious awareness
to the imageless, non-verbal realm of the endocept, or "amorphous cognition"
(Arieti, 1976). The endocept is not an abstraction based upon numerous
experiences, but "nonrepresentational activity... which may derive from
a repressed image or from other mental work that is not yet differentiated"
(p. 60).

Metaphorically, the sub-oceanic forms which impede, detour, and redirect
the flow of consciousness represent primordial psychic structures lying
at the developmental roots of humanity's evolution of conscious awareness;
millennia of adaptive experiences coded and etched into the genetic materials
of humankind. The shadowy forms without substance--the archetypal "codes"
of the human species--guide and sculpt the course of consciousness, urging
general directions--" tides" of individual and collective behavioral flow
aimed toward adaption, survival, and evolution. More than merely a condensed,
cumulative history of archetypes and leitmotifs, archetypal "codes" also
offer potential resolutions to problems of adaption, expression, and evolution,
more as general areas of recombinatorial possibilities than specific solutions.

The intrapsychic patternings occurring in the sphere of interstitial
consciousness, may be physiognomically "felt" as meaningful, potential
answers--intuitions, although not fully grasped or "owned" by the self-conscious
mind. If sensed by self-consciousness as being meaningful (or pertinent),
the archetypal presentment, garbed in some sensory form (e.g., a vision,
sound, or body-sensation) must be "decoded" and transliterated into the
verbal-conceptual "language" (secondary process) of the self-conscious
mind. Commenting on the need for translation of unconscious productions, Jung (1976) states:

The creative process...consists in an unconscious animation of
the archetype, and in a development and shaping of this image till
the work is completed. The shaping of the primordial image is...a
translation into the language of the present, thus enabling every
man to be stirred again by the deepest springs of life which would
otherwise be closed to him (p. 126).

Taking a somewhat different position in regard to the organizing potential
of the deep unconscious, Ghiselin (1952) says:

A great many of the configurations that do appear in the fringes
of consciousness are continually shifting because no sign has been
found to impose on them the fixed status of a scheme. They
slide out of consciousness, like the nameless configurations of the
rocking ocean (p. 22-23).

It appears that Ghiselin has recognized the ebbs and flows of archetypal
influences, but has overlooked both the fixating characteristics of verbally-mediated
cognition and, the roles played by meaning and need in the retention of
unconscious materials. Ghiselin does not appear sensitive to the archetypal
influences which form vortices of organizational potential in the interstitial
realm, once removed from the schematizing and rubricizing effects of the
self-reflective mind.

Interaction of the two spheres of consciousness are generally guided
by two kinds of direction: the wish (or desire) of the conscious mind,
and the unconscious intention (will or volition) of the engaged subconscious.
Introjections of the external (object) world by-the self-conscious mind
during the Preparation phase (Wallas, 1976) merely establishes
a backdrop for the creativity process to occur. During this phase there
is an intense focus upon (or immersion in) the problem and its elements;
an "absorption" which may reach the level of obsession, the analyzed and
fragmented aspects of the problem invading the unconscious in sleep, reverie
and ruminations. Responding to the "pull" of the conscious mind, an archetypal
"template" appropriate to a thematic solution of the problem--that is,
a contentless potential for resolution--interacts with the introjected
pieces of the problem. This occurs during the Incubation phase
(Wallas, 1976), an indistinct stage that co-exists, alternately, with
the Preparation phase.

Only when an intrapsychic product - an image or symbol is plucked from
the realm of interstitial consciousness, "owned" by the self-conscious
mind and realized as being of value in offering a solution to the problem,
can it be said that the state of Illumination has been reached.
The work of the discursive mind now begins; interpreting the message from
the depths, and translating it into external reality.

In summary, the area of interstitial consciousness is a construct, a
culturally-relative crucible in which two types of consciousness are blended
in the creative process. The model however, is much more complex than
the simple addition of ingredients, and resembles liquid crystals used
in today's digital computers and displays. Liquid crystals are, in fact,
in a paracrystalline stage. Their molecular structure is easily altered
and restructured by electric and magnetic fields, the ordering being "coded"
by preprogrammed instructions conveyed through electric or magnetic energies.

This model seems congruent with the processes described in this section.
The partially-ordered character of the liquid crystals is comparable to
the cognitive systems existent in self-consciousness which, although subjectively
experienced as stable, are in fact quite capable of alteration through
physical and environmental fluctuations (recall Fiske and Maddi's description
of the need for variety in stimulation in order to maintain a stable state)
and the use of drugs. The coding "wired" into the device represents an
archetypal/endoceptual "blueprint" which, in the presence of a unifying,
information-bearing energy, permits interaction between the two levels
of organization. It is only when the code at the deepest level interacts
with the alterable matrix at the highest level through the formative energy
fields, that the entire system works as a synergistic whole.

The key to interaction at the level of interstitial awareness lies in
the "opening" of the system through relaxation of the limits of the ego
construct and an openness to the subtle guidance of the archetypal realm.

There is a dark side to the power in this integrative process however,
which would occur when archetype and ego oppose each other through the
polarization of energies; the self defending itself against intrusion
while the archetype urgently seeks--and sometimes demands--expression.
Through the transmutational nature of the psychoenergetic systems involved,
archetypal urgings may be blocked from conscious awareness and may surface
through other avenues of expression: neurosis, psychosis, or psychosomatic
illness. The message from the depths, although denied will not be
ignored and may reverse the physiognomic pathway to externalize upon the
body or mind the consequences of a lesion in awareness.

More exotic examples of archetypal power are found in the synchronistic,
psychokinetic events described by Jung (Wolman, 1977). These, and other
examples of parapsychological effects upon seemingly separate and discrete
animate and inanimate objects (Nash, 1982; Rhine, 1972) are suspected
of being mediated by consciousness. However, these studies suggest that
the same factors discussed here in relation to creativity may he operating
in psychokinesis (PK); i.e., will (or intentionality), the bypassing
of the conscious mind, and the utilization of a continuum of energies
which are not yet understood or measurable. Momentary unifications
of the rift between the two types' of consciousness may then underly the
creative process, physical/emotional healing, and provide some understanding
of the psychokinetic process in parapsychology.

The creative synthesis "blends the two worlds of mind and matter,...the
rational with the irrational" (Arieti, 1976) for the purpose of "forming
and reforming the world" (May, 1975). The creative process however, is
not merely a means of adapting to the world as it exists. It s also the
means of transcending the limitations imposed by it and ourselves. The
human is not only a "self-conscious finitude" (Arieti, 1976) with the
capacity to transcend facts and natural determinisms through innovation.
We are blessed and cursed with the godlike, inherent potential to transcend
our natures and create new realities. Or, we may barricade ourselves behind
self-erected and self-maintained walls of protective security in the name
of stability and predictability, only to imprison ourselves at last.

VII.

Summary and Prospectus: To Reap the Whirlwind

In this theoretical exposition, I have attempted to treat the creativeprocess in a broader, more universally-applicable fashion than has
usually been the case in the literature. My approach to the problem was
selected because I see creativity as being far greater in its importance
and relevance to human growth and functioning than the mere consideration
of novel products, divergent thinking, or creative personality traits
can, of themselves, convey, It is the nature of consciousness itself,
as expressed through the dual, complementary manifestations of creativity,
that must be central to our epistemological, investigative, and philosophical
concerns.

There is no creative person or process apart from what is inherent in
the holistic development and functioning of the individual. To focus on
an empirical difference between divergent and convergent thinking without
consideration of the phenomenological underpinnings perpetuates a superficially
valid, yet investigatively limited categorization, obscuring underlying,
fundamental unities. Wallach (1970) says, in reference to Torrance's view
of the unity of cognitive processes:

...what Torrance seems to mean by creativity is a general intelligence
concept liberalized by the addition of references to a problem-solving
phase...even broader than that of Guilford, since (it) seems to
imply a single basic dimension of which both divergent and convergent
thinking would be parts (p. 1224).

Creativity cannot be defined when analytically particularized into the
use of metaphors (Gordon, 1976), "unconscious activation of the archetype"
(Jung,- 1976), effective surprise" (Bruner, 1976), or "tertiary process"
(Arieti, 1976). Its parts can only be understood when related to the whole:
adaption as a function of the ontogenetic evolution of consciousness;
"the creator-impulse as the life impulse made to serve the individual
will" (Rank, 1976, p. 116). For creativity, in its biphasic complementarity,
may be considered the mode of transduction serving the intentionality
of consciousness in the forms of construction/destruction, progression/regression,
synergy/entropy.

Creativity is an holistic, multi-level developmental process of consciousness.
It requires mediums (in the forms of materials and energies) upon (and
through) which to operate. This is true whether the resource-mobilizing
effects of intention are directed toward the development of a Unified
Field Theory constructed upon the theoretical corpus of Nineteenth Century
physics, or a pièta carved of marble taken from the hills of Carrara.
Awareness of the wide variety of energies used by consciousness to modify
(recreate) the environment, as expressed through the creative process,
is widening considerably with the emergence of evidence suggesting that
energies may exist which, allegedly, influence the roll of dice (Rhine,
1972) or alter the growth and mutation rates of bacteria grown in incubators
through "wishing" (Nash, 1982; Nash, 1983).

Recent evidence on the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres
(Bogen, 1974; Gazzaniga, 1974) has assigned dualistic, appositional functions
and a proposed integrative function to the corpus callosum. In the development
of the body, as in architecture, it appears that form may follow function:
the differentiation of neural structures may be shaped and patterned
through the ontogenetic and phylogenetic evolution of consciousness, and
physically mirror the two types of consciousness necessary for adaption.

In these pages, I have also tried to touch upon the roles of energy (and
energy fields) in creativity and consciousness as having been sorely neglected
in their potential to explain the developmental process in the emergence
and differentiation of structure/systems, their dedifferentiation during
creative accession, and a variety of phenomena, from artistic creation
to psychosomatic illness and psychokinetic effects.

The significance of energy as a mediational mechanism for the
expression of consciousness and creativity was mentioned earlier
in regard to the work of Becker (1974). Sherrington, quoted in LeShan
(1974), comments upon the relationship of energy and the brain:

I...think of the brain as an organ of liaison between energy and
mind, but not as a converter of energy into mind or vice versa (p.
246).

If the brain is, as Sherrington put it, a liaison between energy and
mind, is it unreasonable to assume that mind--that is, consciousness--has
influenced the structural evolution of the brain through the same (or
similar) bioelectric potentials which Becker has found to effect cellular
specialization, dedifferentiation, and re-specialization? This is a fertile
area of investigation which should be pursued within the sphere of consciousness
research.

Casting the net of theory before us in the search for truth, we must
take into account the cultural/professional paradigm egocentricities and
biases inherent in viewing divergent, phenomenological processes from
within a predominant, convergent system of empirical research. The sociocultural emphasis
upon empirical reality tends to conceal the underlying unity of
consciousness, ignore the manifestations of creativity found in the child's
re-creation of the existing world, and divide the holism of the "fully
functioning person" (Rogers, 1961) into somatic, cognitive, and conative
portions to be empirically ingested--à la (Des) cartes.

True creativity in human consciousness is the cosmic "dance of Shiva,"
as envisioned by physicist Fritjof Capra (1977):

...a great rhythmic process of creations and destruction, of death
and rebirth, and Shiva's dance symbolized this eternal life-death
rhythm which goes on in endless cycles (p. 230)

Capra was inspired by the continual transformations of matter into energy,
energy into matter, at the subatomic level. We, in this consideration
of creativity, are speaking of a similar kind of liberating play ... also
reaching the level of the cosmos (or bacteria) and involving a freedom
in the use of energies for the reconstruction of the new from the dissembled
foundations of the outworn.

Just as subatomic particles are the building blocks of matter, consciousness
also organizes our material reality through its myriad manifestations.
As we examine the ways in which our bodies (and minds) are affected by
consciousness in terms of physique, posture, psychosomatic disorders,
lifestyles, or the physical trappings with which we surround ourselves,
it is clear that individual and collective consciousness creates and maintains
the forms found in all aspects of our physical and phenomenological worlds.
These are the sociocultural forms with which we are familiar, or to which
we have become habituated, and which some seek to perpetuate. The power
used to perpetuate--a bound state of stasis--is the same power used to
create; the capacity to de-differentiate a (temporarily) useful form or
reality in order to establish new "blueprints" for civilization and human
potential.

The Cartesian exaltation of the self-conscious mind has taken us tothe apogee of objectification of human nature, and the festering "lesion
in awareness" is exacting its toll in human "dis-ease" and psychosomatic
illness. These are symptomatic manifestations of self- (and social) alienation
which can only be healed through integration of mind and body, and a cultivation
of the healing aspect of the creative process in each of us.

We have come to a point in time when, in order to escape the destructive
societal paradigms we have created, we must grasp creativity as a means
of healing society--and ourselves--by re-establishing the continuum of
consciousness inherent in all. It calls for a return to a knowledge of
the language and wisdom of the body, and a recognition of the subtle,
yet persistent, guidance to be found beneath the chattering of the self-reflective
mind in the archaic, depths of our archetypal realm. With our self-conscious
center quieted and receptively aligned to accept archetypal influences,
new realities may be conceived and materialized, for the energized archetype
offers, as Jung promises: "a deep presentment that strives to find expression.
. It is like a whirlwind that seizes everything within reach and., by
carrying it aloft, assumes a visible shape" (Ghiselin, 1952, p.
217).